Closing the BoxSome Lower East Siders are trying to get the Box closed because it’s more a nightclub and less the “cultural institution” its owners promised it would be. (And also, we presume, because it’s utterly insufferable.) At the age of 50, Kelly Klein, ex of Calvin, is finally having a baby. Hillary Clinton raised $500,000 at a fund-raiser at Ted Danson’s house on Martha’s Vineyard. The beach is eroding in front of Tina Brown and Harry Evans’s place in Quogue. John McEnroe is in talks with Larry Ellison to establish a tennis training center in Flushing Meadows. Andy Roddick had stage fright when asked to say a few words at a party in his honor at Tenjune. A bunch of guests got lost en route to Donna Karan’s house in East Hampton. Tom Petty played two gigs in the Hamptons for $1.7 million. (Paul McCartney and Renée Zellweger were there.) Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning looked for the entrance to La Esquina.
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$150,000 for Two Weeks? Only in the Hamptons, KidsThe never-cheap Hamptons may finally crossed the line into totally, ridiculously, stratospherically expensive as folks with money realize the summer is winding down and they wouldn’t mind spending some time on the East End before the season’s out. Power broker Lori Barbaria of Prudential Douglas Elliman just rented a modest — for the Hamptons, at least — 3,500-square-foot house in Bridgehampton for mind-bending $150,000 for two weeks, not including the $250-per-shot for the cleaning service required every few days. Her colleague, Paul Brennan, says he’s gotten calls begging for anything on the waterfront for $30,000 for a weekend, a fairly novel request as short-term rentals are frowned-upon in the Hamptons and asking for them is tantamount to wearing polyester to polo. But even with those huge sums being offered, brokers are skeptical anything will pan out. “Once in a while you can do something if the owners are out of the country,” says Brennan, “but the reception is usually lukewarm.” —S. Jhoanna Robledo
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Hello, My Coney Island Baby
Coney Island, yesterday, when the high reached 92 degrees, according to Weather.com. It’s 89 degrees right now, with a forecast high of 92 again. Isn’t it fun sitting at your desk, staring at the computer?
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Surfin’ NYC
Sure, if you want to be a snob, you could insist on Waikiki Beach on Oahu or Kirra Point on Australia’s Gold Coast. But you can’t get to either of those with a MetroCard — and today the city’s Parks Department opened New York’s second surfing-only beach in the Rockaways. Until 2005, a musty law banned surfing anywhere within the five boroughs. But that year a stretch of seashore at Beach 90th Street was opened to surfers and closed to everyone else, and, well, it was gnarly, dude. Today, after the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation cleaned the area and a Parks commish Adrian Benepe led a small ceremony, the strip of sand at Beach 67th Street was also turned over to the boarders. It’s just an A-train ride away — and, on that note, we think we’ll call it a week. Catch you Monday.
